Archived & Upcoming Images of the Day
An unusually visible pair of Sundogs joining the morning sun.
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Here is a detail of the left sundog complete with an incidental gull.
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An adult Robin banks across the photo site with some tiny morsel in the tip of the beak. What a mess a season of breeding makes of the once pristine feathers.
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One of two pristine Badger individuals trundling across the Woodland camera site 3 days apart.
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One of two pristine Badger individuals trundling across the Woodland camera site 3 days apart.
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We are now sure that we have at least 2 similarly pristine Badgers, the one to the left/behind with slightly duller white fur areas.
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In successive frames we catch a juvenile Blackbird demanding food from it's Mum.
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In successive frames we catch a juvenile Blackbird demanding food from it's Mum. Here the juvenile Blackbird has it's back to camera and the tip of the upper mandible hides the yellow tip of the adults beak.
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4 days later this female Blackbird has some sort of caterpillar in her beak. Parents are still actively feeding youngsters then, as shown earlier.
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A Gorgeously coloured juvenile Blackbird, presumably from an earlier brood.
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If you can't catch a succulent Rodent, eat the apple instead.
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Its apple-fall time - so the Squirrels eat apple - here actually the core of a Pink Lady Apple from Tesco!
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A Grey Squirrel carries off half of an Avocado rind.
We never find the scraped out remains of the rinds, so suspect that
the Squirrels eat the whole thing.
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The drought has created wide and deep cracks in exposed soil. Here a Wood Pigeon looks down the Crack hoping for some food dropped in.
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The drought has created wide and deep cracks in exposed soil. Here a Badger sticks his snout into the crack to check out interesting smells from within. Badgers have very poor eyesight and use a sense of smell to compensate.
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This Weasel shows us the wonderful flexible back that we think puts
even a Cheetah to shame!
See a Cheetah in action at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icFMTB0Pi0g
Interesting pics always seem to be at least partly out of frame :-(
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Is the Weasel about to attack the Magpie?
Oh for another frame perhaps 2 seconds later!
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Near the end of the night a Bat breaks the sense beam just as a Plume Moth (species unknown) flies away. Did the Bat miss his prey?
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In the hot afternoon sun in a cloudless sky, this Red Kite started drawing circles in the sky as it gained height. The bird made a lovely swoop coming quite close to us. From the 42 pics we took (at 7fps) we selected these 8 to make a close spaced impression. Pics about 2/3 second apart.
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Out for an afternoon stroll we realised that the air was 'full' of Para-gliders,
mostly circling high in thermals to gain height but generally moving in the
direction WSW to ENE. There must have been at least 20 different craft over the
25 minutes we watched them until they seemed to have finished their
passage.
This Para-glider got the closest to us, arriving quite low, circling many times
to gain height, but failing to rise. A few minutes later he gave up the unequal
struggle with gravity, and landed out of sight over the horizon to our south.
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A fun montage of some of the 200 images we got. Para-gliders go in for some
interesting colours and designs. The 'wing' is actually two sheets of material
with openings along the front edge to inflate the wing into an aerodynamic
shape. If the top and bottom are different patterns or colours, light through
the fabrics can change the appearance as they change direction.
We were expecting to find aircraft G-xxxx numbers on the canopies as seen on
hang-gliders, but there are none. The explanation is that ...
"A self-administering organisation is responsible for administering operational
and airworthiness standards and for issuing pilot
certificates."
Parachutes (as emergency equipment) don't require registration,
and Para-gliders are sort of similar. We notice that Para-glider pilots
sport an emergency parachute on their backs! Very sensible.
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Late summer sees the arrival of what has in recent years become the annual appearance of a few Stock Doves.
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The feather down and 'naked' beak tell us that this is a juvenile stock Dove teetering inexpertly on the edge of the bird table. We know of several Pigeon nests around our site and now assume one of them raised this youngster.
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We keep scaring away Partridges as we walk about outside our patch. Here inside our patch one of the Red-legged variety steps through the photo sense beam right at the right edge of the photographic frame.
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We wouldn't want to be in the focus of those eyes!
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Wouldn't it be interesting to experience the smell of this stone the way a fox does?
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An early morning Robin 'drops in' next to a juvenile Tree Sparrow that doesn't seem particularly concerned - it may not know that some Robin are 'bully boys'.
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Chaffinches have bred well this year, so there are lots of opportunities for 'pecking order' disputes.
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A lovely male Roe Deer displaying his characteristic antlers - strangely 'crusty' at the base and with only 2 (as here) or 3 points.
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4 days later, and 100 metres away, we see this female Roe Deer delicately stepping through the windfall apples.
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This female Reeve's Muntjac Deer (a much smaller deer than the Roe) patters over the grass verge of the Farm Road, unusually unbothered by our presence.
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This plant is 'Cat's-ear' flowering in the crop margin. Only when we looked at the pic on the screen did we spot the 7-spot Ladybird left and down from the centre. The bright yellow splashes of colour against the dark is how it really looks.
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This pristine Badger is becoming a real regular at the feeding sites and in the trail cams. Will be watching for him digging out a bolt-hole or home.
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Over one night this pristine badger trundles around head down. The main attraction is the fall of apples from dehydration and a recent high winds.
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One of the local foxes searches the still parched ground for some unfortunate food item. They are omnivores so will most likely enjoy the strawberry as well.
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Two Foxes spent a minute or two companionably together at the end of the orchard.
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Exactly 6 days later (to the minute!) this is possibly the same fox 'couple' we showed you as a montage above.
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This year has seen the numbers of this pretty little Common Blue Butterfly rise from an occasional one at a time to several in the hedge at once.
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Wild flowers have been flowering well and supporting large numbers and variety of Butterflies.
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Wild flowers have been flowering well and supporting large numbers and variety of Butterflies.
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An unusual sighting for us is this 22 spot Ladybird walking over the sharp spines of the thistle leaf with zero concern. Despite its outlandish appearance this is a wholly British species rather than a Harlequin variant.
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On a cable lock was this less than 1 cm long Shieldbug identified with the image. It will grow by shedding its carapace to become a handsome, if small, creature.
 early instar larva body length 8mm on gate cable lock(r+mb id@576).jpg)
At the woodland site foxes appearing over 3 nights.
On the left is after rain and looks to be a different individual.
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Visits by what looks like the same pristine Badger on two successive nights. The last visit has the top of the muzzle stained red. We suspect beetroot juice!
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A pair of Collared Doves literally 'billing and Cooing' in a sweet moment.
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Double Trouble
Two Grey squirrels feeding quietly together can make more trouble than one.
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Two different visits, one where by luck we caught a take-off, so couldn't resist this accurate montage of events 2.5 hours apart.
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Among several visits to this Post in the same night, all landing with amazingly similar positions, on this occasion the Tawny Owl stayed for a few minutes before flying down to take a photo at the right edge of the 'meadow' site.
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We got no right side of the bird making a full scale portrait a bit awkward, but
this 'head and shoulders' works nicely. You can clearly see the flesh-ripping
beak.
Whole left side of bird is available if
wanted
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By the edge of the main pond a female Blackbird basks in the sun, presumably to top up her vitamin D, though she wouldn't know it, with beak open panting to keep cool!
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A male Blackbird with the classic yellow beak
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At exactly the same scale we find this female Blackbird obviously collecting food for what we assume is a second brood.
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As the day draws to an end the Fox's day-time pin-prick pupils begin to expand. At this intermediate the shape is a slightly disconcerting vertical oval.
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This Fox's irises not quite fully open even at 3 a.m. Possibly there is a bright moon lighting this open site.
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An hour before midnight it is here truly dark and the iris has just about disappeared to let in as much light as possible to the Fox's eyes.
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GUILTY - a mug shot montage of the chief knocker-over of
things!
(Actually taken 2 days apart, they may not even be the same individual)
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A Badger following his nose around the plot!
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Here a Red Kite seems oblivious to us, staring at the ground and then making a quiet turn to continue the hunt. 1 second of flight here.
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A Red Kite glides quietly by.
In this and the following montages we are particular lucky that the speed
of flight and camera frame rate produces close spaced images.
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A second and a half of action as this Red Kite flies by and then banks towards us.
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A Red kit spreading the primary feathers for lift without the effort of flapping the wings.
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Lifting the Corrugated iron sheet exposed the Grass Snake near the centre, and another at one end (no photo). Note how the tail loops around and then follows the body backwards.
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Darter Dragonflies do like to perch on items low over the water. Here a Ruddy Darter Dragonfly hunts and patrols from a turned-over Iris leaf.
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Hover-fly, Peacock Butterfly, and a Soldier Beetle all caught by chance in the same frame.
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At the hedge site we catch this relaxed interaction between two Foxes.
(Not a montage)
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A few minutes later presumably the same pair appeared about 80m away wandering over the mound.
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This Fox seems to be following a scent trail - although the nose is close to the ground the movement blur on the legs indicate that it is moving swiftly to the left.
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The margins of the Oil-seed Rape crop have an unusually varied selection of weeds this year. Here is some Groundsel showing heads from flowers to seeds.
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Each year our meadow area has a few clumps of the poisonous (to some livestock) Ragwort. This year we have yet to see any on our patch, but found this solitary clump flowering in the edge of the Oil-seed Rape crop 100m from where we ever see ours. It disappeared into the harvester.
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Following months of occasional sightings on trail cams, here over one night at the Woodland site we have a Polecat on the hunt, we think moving a kit in her mouth, and then carrying 2 dead rabbits back into her burrow. Here are the event and time stamps:-
| TL | 10 July 22:32 | First sighting |
| TR | 10 July 22:34 | Probably carrying a kit to a new burrow (see separate detail image). |
| ML | 11 July 03:58 | Different camera with 2 young rabbits 20m away - possibly the prey. |
| MR | 11 July 05:20 | First Rabbit being dragged. |
| BL | 11 July 05:27 | Second Rabbit 7 minutes later. |
| BR | 11 July 05:39 | Final clear sighting (last actual image 2 minutes later) |
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Detail from the top right image of what we think is a Polecat Kit in the mouth.
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